Why Does Kenshin Wear Pink?
by Elly And The Gundam Wing Fan
Summary: A one-shot that tries to explain the significance of Kenshin's magenta-fuchsia-pink gi. Rated PG for violence against laundry and chickens. This fic may cause death if read out loud.


Disclaimer: We don't own RK! We don't own the odd pink gi! We're just struggling students that don't own diddly! However, these disclaimers don't work both ways. Case in point, if Kenshin wanted to own Elly for some reason (let's claim insanity) she'd go for it. Authors are strange, deprived creatures.

Warning: This fic can and _will_ cause death by suffocation if read out loud. For best results, read it in your head using a British news announcer voice (ala Monty Python) or the voice of a thirteen-year-old girl on her sixty-eighth Pixie Stik.

A New One-Shot by:

Elly And The Gundam Wing Fan

**Why Is the Gi PINK!?**

Let's begin by musing over the oddity that is a feather. Here you have a bird's renewable appendage that seems created for the sole purpose of tickling somebody or causing a violent sneeze. Oh yes, and some say they help said birds to fly. Whichever of these three purposes a particular feather _may_ have been being used for beforehand, it is highly unusual to find one, say, in your bed upon waking in the morning. One might say that chicken feathers absolutely do _not_ belong in sleeping areas largely due to the first two purposes mentioned, both of which are rather intrusive upon a good night's sleep.

So as we have established, feathers are odd, but finding them in your bed in the morning is probably even _more_ disturbing, and just so happens to be exactly where we're going with this seemingly pointless interlude here. _Nobody_ expects such things upon waking, least of all Sagara Sanosuke, but feathers, it seems have a will of their own… along with foxy doctor ladies that have some sort of unjustified grudge against you for something you _think_ you should remember, but can't just yet because you're still waking up.

"There are patients coming! Go away!" Yes, she definitely was holding _some_ kind of unjustified grudge. Throwing chickens on somebody first thing in the morning is _not_ a good sign of respect and affection. Who throws chickens, anyway?

Well regardless of who has the glaring nerve to _throw_ chickens, if you have one descending towards your face, flapping it's wings like crazy and throwing feathers all over you, one has a solemn responsibility to bat the stupid bird out of the way. Which is what Sano did, because he honors solemn responsibilities… or something. "Hey!? What are you doing here?"

"Hm?" Megumi replied easily. "Doctors are _supposed_ to be at the clinic in the morning. Am I wrong?"

At which response one might toss all that worthless speculation about feathers out the proverbial window and wonder how the heck you ended up sleeping on the front porch of the local clinic. Then, remembering how all that came to be, you might wish you could return to the feather debate, but alas it is too late. Your chance is gone, and your memories of the night before are back.

He had apparently walked the doctor home last evening to keep her safe (what a joke, she could probably take out half the country single handedly), had gotten stuck in a terribly boring conversation about medicine, and had done what any sensible man would do: he fell asleep right on the porch, snoring as loudly as humanly possible, and not waking up regardless of the myriad of medical instruments thrown at him or shoved down his throat. "Oh… right. Okay, I'm going."

Megumi kept hold of the next chicken to be used as feathery ammunition, and looked stern. Maybe the grudge was _somewhat_ justified? Maybe just a little? Nah, she's just overreacting.

Sanosuke dusted the feathers off (we'd discuss how strange feathers are, but the moment is lost) and was going to make a grand search of the neighborhood for some good breakfast to eat, preferably for free, when a stunning question came to mind. "Why chickens?"

Megumi patted the creature she was holding fondly. "I thought you might understand one of your own kind, Rooster, since you don't listen to a word humans say."

Actually, chicken sounded like pretty good breakfast come to think of it. Now where could somebody find free chicken for breakfast?

That line of thought naturally cruises us down the street to the Kamiya Dojo, where only one occupant of the entire school has a legitimate right to the breakfast served there. Everybody else who eats there is getting a free ride for various reasons ranging from being a student of the martial arts style taught there, to being too ridiculously adorable _not_ to feed, to the obvious fact that Kamiya Kaoru has _never_ learned to tell somebody to get the hell out, or at least get a paying job. But let's face it, who would throw Kenshin out? He's too ridiculously adorable not to feed, as stated above, plus he knows how to get tough grass stains out. Yahiko's claim to breakfast is not as clean-cut, but he eats as though he has incredible laundry skills as well, although that's completely untrue, as Yahiko couldn't get a grass stain out if his next lunch depended on it.

Ultimately, all of the world's greatest searches for a free meal end here, on the steps to the Kamiya Dojo, where you get to eat even if you're not adorable or good at laundry. Not to say that it doesn't _help_ to be adorable, because you can never go wrong with that. However, it's a good thing that being adorable isn't a _requirement_, because it's hard to classify Sanosuke as adorable. Especially when he has a bunch of chicken feathers in his hair and various other places.

"What're we eating?" Said the former fighter-for-hire, sparing no manners, for as we said, being adorable is not a requirement, and apparently, neither is being personable "Tell me it's chicken."

"Chicken for breakfast?" Kenshin (henceforth referred to as Mr. Adorable… nah, scratch that, it'd never go over with the execs) said, laboring over creating a meal of some sort. "Chicken sounds more like lunch, that it does."

Having the definition of breakfast defined to you by the strangest person you have ever met doesn't really sit well after a morning of dodging plummeting chickens, thus you could forgive Sano's rash reaction, or, if you just don't like Sano, call him names for being mean. "Ah, shut up."

"Looks like _somebody's_ had a rough night!" Yahiko emerged from his bedroom (undoubtedly lured in by the smell of cooking. I swear these guys run off of food radar), looking scraggly himself, but lacking the chicken feathers. "Did you forget how to get home again, and had to sleep in somebody's chicken coop?"

"Ooooohhh…" And finally, the legitimate eater, the breadwinner, the assistant sensei Kaoru stumbled out of her room, looking wretched. "Oooooohhhh…"

"What's the matter with you?" Yahiko addressed her boisterously. "You're looking uglier than normal this morning!"

"Stop making so much noise!" Kaoru demanded, kneeling by the table with one palm pressed firmly against her forehead. She swayed like a person returned from five years of doing absolutely nothing but riding roller coasters and playing Parcheesi. Not that Parcheesi makes people sway, but you'd have to do _something_ besides ride roller coasters for five years straight and Parcheesi sounds like an apt candidate.

"You look like you have a hangover," Sanosuke said, likely from experience. "Or you've been playing too much Parcheesi. One or the other."

"Not so loud!" Kaoru repeated again, bracing herself against the table. "And you're wrong. It's a migraine."

"You're feeling sick, Kaoru-dono?" Kenshin set the completed breakfast in the middle of the table, nearly dropping the whole thing when Sano and Yahiko started digging in before it even made contact with the tablecloth (it's my theory that they could eat everything in a Chuck O Rama before noon between just the two of them). "Do you want to see Megumi-san?"

"She'll just throw poultry at you." Sano warned, fighting Yahiko's attempt to grab a choice bit of food. They had invented a rather ingenious game of 'chopstick wrestling' that went to great lengths to determine who's mouth different bits of food would travel to. There had been talk of spreading the art of chopstick wrestling to Kyoto, but fear of misuse by the Juppongatana (A/N: Spelled it right on the first try! Woohoo!) quenched that idea.

"No," Kaoru said, trying to open her eyes against the light. "I'll be fine."

And then 'it' happened. Kaoru was turning to flash a reassuring smile to Kenshin and be generally flirtatious at him, because that was in fact, the _routine_ that they were used to for breakfast, and it goes against the grain to abandon the _routine_! For the first time in months, however, the _routine_ was not executed normally. Instead of saying something cute, finding a transparent reason to hang on Kenshin's arm, or generally get in his face like a pesky gnat, Kaoru took one look at Kenshin, screamed, and fell over backwards.

"Kaoru-dono!" Kenshin had all but given up on actually eating any breakfast this morning anyway. Sanosuke and Yahiko were simply being too aggressive with their chopstick wrestling, and unless Kaoru ate something first (which she never would at this rate) it would be very rude to start before her. In all Kenshin's life it had never occurred to him that he really ought to eat more, seeing as he's skinny as can be and his neck looks like it could be snapped with a misplaced Frisbee throw. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, the _pain_!" Kaoru said somewhat dramatically. "Go away! I can't stand _looking_ at you!"

"That's a new one." Yahiko muttered, mouth stuffed with his winnings from chopstick wrestling. "That sounds funny coming from you, ugly!"

Indeed, that _was_ a strange thing to say, especially coming from a girl, but _particularly_ coming from Kaoru, who tended to find Kenshin more fun to look at than even Elly does, which is to say, lots.

"You should go to the clinic, that you should!" Kenshin suggested, trying to look like he wasn't hurt by the declaration, or by the breaking of the _routine_. People really shouldn't go around messing up their daily _routines_. Despite that heinous error, however, Kenshin came around the table to help Kaoru up, or, failing that, to drag her to the clinic by her ponytail.

"No! I don't want to look at you!" Kaoru insisted, clamping her eyes shut and preparing to smash the hell out of anybody who came too close with her magic bokken. "You're making me sick!"

"Oro?" There was no denying it now. Kaoru had spelled it out. She must have finally gotten nauseous about the concept of keeping a former assassin in her Dojo, regardless of how well he could do the laundry. If only he had invented dry-cleaning… nobody could feel sick about somebody who could do dry-cleaning. "But… Kaoru-dono!"

"Go away!"

Ah, the humanity. In the end, even being ridiculously adorable doesn't win out over all. Kenshin looked sad, even depressed in that flat-haired way that only anime characters can do, but is oh-so-effective. It was a harsh realization, but if being incredibly adorable wasn't getting him his way, he had nothing left to fall back on! "I'll finish a load of laundry and then I'll go, that I will…"

This even made Sanosuke and Yahiko drop some food… _food_! They each dropped one grain of rice, which fell in slow motion, looked at each other, glared at Kenshin, and then scrambled to finish the disappearing remnants at the bottom of the bowl. It was, in fact, infinitely more shocking that they lost sight of a few specks of food, than Kenshin's declaration of departure. More shocking than Kaoru's _request_ that he should go! What were they thinking, letting rice get away like that?

"What?" Kaoru sat back up, holding both hands over her eyes to block the sun, and apparently, the very sight of Kenshin, which is a foolish thing to do, because how often do you get to look at somebody so ridiculously adorable? Not very often, let me tell you. "Don't _go_! It's just hurting my eyes to look at that… _color_ you have on! Don't you have anything else to wear?"

"Oro?" Kenshin dropped the oh-so-effective flat-haired look and went for bug-eyed disbelief instead. The man's range and repertoire is incredible, but the best one has got to be the thoughtful 'in-the-rain' expression that would be awesome right now, if it weren't a beautiful, cloudless spring day. Oh well. One can only hope for terrible thunderstorms to roll in as soon as possible. "I don't think so… what's wrong with magenta?"

"Pink." Sanosuke said observantly, throwing down his chopsticks in victory. It was a close victory, but a victory nonetheless, and one that would go down in chopstick wrestling history.

"It's _fuchsia_, that it is."

"Pink."

"Salmon?"

"Pink."

"Light red?"

"Man, it's _pink_!"

"How about rose?"

"Whatever _you_ want to call it, you're wearing a pink gi." Sano ended the argument. Arguments should always be finished when a meal is finished, because naps naturally come next, and arguing isn't very effective while sleeping. Thus, it was actually quite considerate of Sano to _slam_ his point in Kenshin's face like that, because it would have been difficult for anybody to make any point at all once they were both asleep.

"Is the pink color what's making you sick, Kaoru-dono?" Kenshin asked hopefully. After all, if that was the only problem, then he wouldn't have to bid farewell to his epic laundry days here at the Kamiya Dojo, which would not only have been tragic for him, but for the rest of the laundry industry as well.

"Yes. Why pink anyway, Kenshin? It's a girly color, and it totally _clashes_ with your hair!" Which was a point well made as even Anne of Green Gables pointed out that redheads should never, never _ever_ wear pink! It is a curse she says, but in Kenshin's case, I'd like to see anybody make a decent argument _against_ his red hair. It's just too brilliant the way it is.

"I've always wondered that…" Yahiko joined in on the group 'pink bashing.' Every once in a while, grab up all your friends and just bash the color pink. It's fun, and it's a great way to alienate anybody who was unlucky enough to wear pink that day.

"It's just so _bright_…" Kaoru said, turning green.

"And girly!" Sano and Yahiko both added, reaching for toothpicks.

Which brings us to a serious discussion about the shade and condition of the gi on trial. If the television's show continuity means _anything_, then we can estimate that Kenshin has been wearing the same gi for… a really… really… _really_ long time. Much longer than should be legal, and inexcusable for somebody who does so much laundry. This gi has been described by other characters as moth-eaten, beat up, and generally vagrant faire. The gi has been through several severe beatings, presumable patchings, and a multitude of bad weather days. Despite this, the color remains garish in presentation, nearly _always_ drowning out whatever anybody else happens to have on whether they be male or female (or undecided). You could argue that it is Kenshin's right as the main character to wear the brightest color in any given shot, but some of us shout 'why not yellow?' 'Why not light blue?' 'Why not green polka dots?' Indeed, why not?

"I like this gi, that I do." Kenshin answered our 'why nots' in such a way that threw the argument aside… or so he thought. There is still a petition going around for green polka dots.

Kaoru continued to cover her eyes. "Well, it's killing me today. Could you just wear something else?"

"It's the only one I have, that it is…" And before the fangirls delve into the deepest gutters of their minds, we will remind them that Kenshin only goes shirtless on occasions of rips that are inconvenient to mend during the course of a battle, or of course, situations where there are explosions present powerful enough to blow somebody's shirt clean off. We have no explosives like that, so you'll just have to watch that episode again for your kicks. Or become a Sanosuke fangirl; he _never_ wears a shirt. All this talk of shirts has gotten us ridiculously off subject…

"Then go get a new one! Seriously Kenshin, you don't have to wear the same clothes until they fall apart, you know?" Kaoru risked a peep at the light and was rewarded with a splitting pain to her cranium.

"You mean until they fall apart _again_?" Yahiko provided. "It's happened already with that outfit."

Kenshin didn't know what was so terrible about his wardrobe (if you can call _one_ perpetually worn outfit a wardrobe). Why hadn't they mentioned it before? Oh wait, maybe they had. Along with their complaints about his speech patterns, 'oro-ing,' and unnaturally youthful look. Come to think of it, there wasn't much they _didn't_ complain about. Maybe they didn't really like him after all? "Oro? Get a new one?"

"Yes, yes! Make it easy on the eyes, will you?" Kaoru fainted backwards again to take advantage of the lovely shade that Sanosuke was providing. Aren't tall people wonderful?

"Oro… okay, Kaoru-dono…"

That day marked a new era. First we had the original season, and then the Legend of Kyoto, and then Meiji Tales, and then of course, the White Gi Days. (Actually 'day,' but we don't want to give anything away yet... oh crap, too late.) This was a spectacularly important day in the Kenshin cast's life, as for once in all of eternity, Kenshin was actually wearing… something else!

"Much better." Kaoru approved gravely. Her migraine had subsided, and her nationally acclaimed adoration for Kenshin had returned. Alas… the _routine _had been on a roll but now they were going to have to start all over. Maybe she'd fish for compliments during the _routine_ now, since they had to start from scratch anyway.

"I don't know…" Kenshin looked rather defeated. It's difficult to part with your pink gi even for one day, or so I've heard. On second thought, I've never heard that, and I don't know what his big deal is; it's just a shirt! Get over it! Nobody cares about your shirt, anyway! (Vote for green polka dots!)

"It makes your eyes look bigger." Sano said through a fish bone in his mouth.

"It does?" Kenshin blinked those ridiculously enormous eyes of his innocently. Have you ever noticed the way his eyes are _scientifically_ designed to look cute and innocent? They just trigger those emotionally sympathetic feelings within you to go 'awwwww…' And then they smash those feelings when he (and his eyes) go Battousai. Then you're more like 'yiiiikes,' but it's too late to take back the 'awwwww,' so you're stuck with it. "Is that a good thing?" I'm voting no on this one because his eyes already take up more than half his face. Any more and I'm freaked, man.

"It's fine. An improvement, actually!" Kaoru smiled. Really, whatever she says goes, because she buys the food. If she says 'get a new white gi and wear it' you better believe your new color is white.

"White looks presumptuous, that it does…"

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" Sano growled. For those that have forgotten what Sanosuke looks like (understandable, since mental images of Kenshin can easily drown him out), he does, in fact, wear all white. In addition to this, his vocabulary may or may not include the word presumptuous.

"Oro… nothing, Sano!" Kenshin waved his hands, looking stilted in the new white gi. One begins to wonder if it's just not Kenshin without the queer pink in the mix…

"Hey, Kaoru!" Yahiko said impatiently. "Are we going to practice some more, or just stare at Kenshin all day?"

It was a good thing that Kaoru didn't _really_ consider this question too deeply, because the honest response is obvious and would have resulted in unfair taunting by Yahiko (he just doesn't understand…). She went with the lie, instead. "That's right! Let's keep practicing!"

Kenshin looked mildly unhappy. "The laundry is waiting, that it is."

With all of the other main characters actually behaving in some sort of useful fashion, a new question is brought forth. Have you ever wondered what Sano's purpose in life is? While Kaoru and Yahiko are practicing, and Kenshin is doing chores, what exactly does Sano do to keep life worth living? Does he pick his teeth with that fish bone? Does he sleep every spare moment away? Does he have a secret side job as a pencil sharpener? The answer is no. He does, in fact, get harassed by women.

"_Here_ you are, of course!" Megumi startled Sano out of his own questioning of the meaning of life (he was leaning toward the fish bone) when she prowled into the Dojo. "I've been waiting for you to come back all morning!"

"Is that so?" Naturally, he was waiting for the shining moment in which Takani Megumi admitted that everybody in the world (including her) really needed him around, and life simply stinks without him. Waiting for this was foolish, of course, because it's not even close to the truth.

"Where is Ken-chan?" She asked angrily.

"Doin' the laundry like a good housewife… that is… a good former serial killer."

If a large, red question mark could have physically appeared above Megumi's head, it would have, except maybe even bigger than large. She would have sported the extra, extra, large, red question mark. "Chickens don't do chores."

"Well, I wouldn't call him a _chicken_, but he does get pretty wimpy around the missie…"

"Ken-chan the chicken! Not Ken-_san_ the…" Whilst thinking up an appropriate title, she clearly stumbled upon something highly _in_appropriate and unmentionable in a fic of this rating, which prompted the classic laugh. "Ohohohoho!"

"You named your chicken Kenshin?" Sano had to wonder if there was a Sano-chan clucking around the clinic's porch, when he suddenly remembered the clinic owned a pig.

"Yes, and he's been gone ever since you left. What'd you do to dear Ken-chan?"

"Don't ask me. _You_ were the one chucking chickens at the crack of dawn; probably hurled him down a well or something." Sano is obviously lacking in chicken sympathy… but aren't we all?

Megumi made a sour pout, and stormed out to find some real help, and somebody to push around: namely Mr. Adorable. Oh wait, we agreed we wouldn't call him that, didn't we? Nonetheless, _that_ is who she got, despite the fact that he was engaged in working his magic on a grass stain. "Ken-san! My favorite chicken has gone missing, and I just know you can find him!"

"Oh, hello Megumi-san! Sorry to hear that, that I am." Need I describe the big smile he puts on when the women start showing up? Is he leading them all on, or secretly wishing they'd all drop dead? Hard to say, hard to say.

"Find him for me!" I'd mention that all chickens are girls, and thus naming one Kenshin seems off the wall, but then we'd get back into that 'why pink' discussion again with all new results. We'll pretend Megumi doesn't know the difference, which is a silly thing to pretend, because she knows more than _I_ do.

"Right now? But…"

"Yes, now!" Megumi began dragging Ken-chan's namesake off the property by the arm, which she had always kind of wanted to do, and was thoroughly pleased with how easy it turned out to be.

But nothing at the Kamiya Dojo is ever really easy, rather, it is _deceptively_ easy, that is to say, pretty hard. Kaoru spotted the abduction, and realizing her very own washer machine/death glare machine was being toted off, felt highly pissed. It doesn't take much to set up an altercation between the tanuki and the kitsune, but there was a bit of motivation to be positively bitchy to each other this time.

Kaoru stalked towards the departing duo, looking serious (and sweaty) from the practicing she had just exited. "Where are you going?"

"To look for Ken-chan!" Megumi said slyly. Whether or not she was intentionally speaking slyly is a moot point, because she is just sly by nature.

Kaoru could think of a few possibilities for what that sly statement might have meant, all of which she did not approve of. Really, she didn't approve of Megumi spending any time around Kenshin at _all_, but one must be a good neighbor. But only to the extent of sending cookies, and sharing recipes. One does _not_ share one's very own ex-imperialist, also known as 'the secret recipe to overthrow the government,' also, _also_ known as 'the human potato shooter only with lightning-fast strikes instead of potatoes.' "Kenshin! Don't go with her!"

This would be the spot where I detailed the altercation between the women, but I realize you already know perfectly well what that looks and sounds like, so it would be positively redundant, and a waste of space. Needless to say, Kaoru's answer to Megumi's witty comebacks was to smash _Kenshin_ over the head with her magic bokken, because that solves the problem or something. Why not smash _Megumi_, you ask? Simple. There's an unspoken code between women that states you shall never intentionally ruin the other's makeup. Seeing as Kenshin doesn't wear makeup (or so we've been cleverly led to believe), he was the only smash-able target in reasonable range. Unfair? Yes. But at least the makeup had been spared.

"Oroo!" And here comes the setup to the punch line that I'm sure you thought I'd never _really_ get around to. It has been observed that given the proper motivation, Kenshin can take out just about anybody that challenges him (barring Shishio, Hiko, and the third guy from the left in the fifth scene of the forty-second episode), but given a situation involving regular people or a good sized piece of Stretch-Tite (think about it), Kenshin is almost absolutely guaranteed to lose, and remain unconscious until the next important scene. Thus, Kaoru is _completely_ capable of knocking Kenshin and his brand new, sparkly white gi flat, which stinks for reasons you can understand _really_ well if you're in the habit of wearing brand new, sparkly white.

Neither Kaoru or Megumi have any particular use for an unconscious, off-white rurouni (at least nothing I'm going to talk about), so that basically ended that argument, and they both shrugged and wandered off. You'd have to question whether this result is the ending they secretly shoot for every time, because it's what _always_ transpires. If this is the case, it's a wonder Kenshin doesn't run for the hills every time both women are at the same place at the same time, like a cold front meeting a warm front and creating a typhoon. But, nobody's ever really credited Kenshin for his dazzling good sense, and I'm not about to do so here. Why can't good looks be enough, anyway?

Perhaps the only thing more upsetting than waking up with a bunch of chicken feathers for company is waking up to find your brand new, sparking white gi has been knocked into a puddle of mud, along with, strangely enough, the rest of you. Now, seeing as the rest of you being muddy isn't really an issue since you have that stain-resistant hair and such, the only real problem at hand would be the (previously) brand new, sparkling white gi, which now looks unexpectedly non-sparkly brown. Fortunately enough, the person we just so happen to be talking about is incomparably good at laundry.

As we have insisted that you'll have to convert to Sano-fanship to appreciate any shirtless-ness in this fic, Kenshin fetched the old magenta/fuschia/_pink_ gi from the dumpster Kaoru had tried to secretly stuff it in and changed in order to rinse the mud off of the other gi. Never one to waste a laundry load, he then went to find all the other whites in need of washing which included several of those cute, short socks that look too slippery to have a proper duel in, _especially_ when considering the sandals as well.

So, socks and off-white gi in hand, epic laundering began in the hopes that the new gi could be renewed to sparkly white splendor again.

"Hey Kenshin, why're you wearing _that_ again?" Yahiko wandered by with his shinai toted over his shoulder. Where he was going and why is inconsequential because we just needed somebody to say that line and he was good enough.

"Just until the new one is clean again, that it is." Kenshin said cheerily, finding mud-stains to be much less challenging than grass-stains, and of course, the frequent bloodstains that he seemed particularly prone to due to countless scrapes, stabs, slices, and of course that one skewering. Let's all just say, 'ouch.' Maybe his familiarity with dealing with bloodstains is what made him overlook the slight tinge in the water this time.

"Better hurry… if Kaoru catches you wearing pink again she's gonna clobber you."

Kenshin didn't really need to be reminded that there was the possibility of getting clobbered. If not for that fantastically fluffy hair, all the other bruises and bumps acquired from Kaoru would probably have been visible, and they were reminder enough. Why the head, anyway? You're supposed to aim for the shoulder in swordsmanship…

Which finally brings us to the punch line believe it or not. Retrieving the new gi from the water, Kenshin had to notice something wrong. It's not really his fault, because we've been setting him up from the beginning, but there must have been some mistake! The mud had been summarily dismissed, but the sparkling white gi was, in fact, _not_ sparkling white, so we probably should stop calling it that. Kenshin realized that if Sano was nearby, he would almost certainly have used the term 'pink' to describe the color of the sparkling white gi… which was of course pink, and not sparkling white anymore, and I really need to stop calling it that.

Holding the new pink gi by its arms, Kenshin did that brilliant look of disbelief sans bug-eyes. He would have certainly included the bug-eyes if not for the fact that he'd already done them at the breakfast table and twice a day is too much. "Oro?" And then, realizing that he'd broken his solemn vow never to mix colors in a wash again, Kenshin dropped the 'oro-ing' and took on the narrow, amber-colored eyes look which is indicative of Battousai mode. Little had anybody guessed that he'd made two vows: not to kill people, and not to bleed colors.

"Aw crap!" Yahiko noticed the transformation and would have used a much stronger word if we had not made it very clear to keep it clean. We don't need a fic about laundry to rate PG-13, so for now, 'crap' is the best he could do. He bolted away sensibly, having a weak stomach for laundry disasters.

It was a good thing he skipped out, too, because Battousai had snapped and was tossing all the socks out of the washing bucket with no regard for where they fell in search of the culprit. Sure enough, amidst the socks was a lone, red headband that had somehow got dropped into one of the Dojo's laundry baskets. Needless to say, somewhere, Sanosuke was either going without his trademark red headband, or had switched to another one, since the one he'd been wearing that morning had been sullied by chicken bombings (take that however you will). Voila. Punch line achieved.

"What's he doing?" Kaoru had heard the battle cries erupting from the front yard (let's pretend she _doesn't_ keep track of Kenshin every minute of the day and just responded to all the noise). What she was witnessing at the moment was rather fantastic, and would be best described as a mix between a train wreck and the bombing of a Laundromat. Battousai had managed to massacre every single article of clothing that had been brought out to be washed (though the gi had been miraculously spared) with that famed 'minimal movement' thing that allowed him to rip through victims at god-like speed. Despite the fact that this ability just _looks_ like he's running around in circles in the anime, it is apparently very scary, though I'm surprised somebody doesn't just stick a leg out and trip him sometimes.

"Aaaaaahhhh!" After the utter destruction of the washing board, Battousai made as if to raid the Dojo, though whether he wanted to slash somebody's wardrobe or grab some lunch was indiscernible. Even legendary manslayers get hungry, don't you know?

"Oh, no you don't!" Kaoru rolled up her sleeves, prepared to defend her kimonos to the last. I don't care what, when it comes between a girl's favorite outfits and an emotionally unbalanced wanderer with great hair, the outfits will win every time. "Hiya!" So she executed the uppercut to the face that people seem to just _assume_ is the only way to knock Kenshin out of his psycho mode for the shallow fact that it worked in that one episode where he fights Saito. However, nobody ever seems to consider the fact that despite the skewering, enough blood _really_ wasn't shed in that battle and a true swordsman has to create a little more sensationalism for everybody's money, thus hitting yourself in the face hard enough to make yourself bleed is just a promotional thing.

Whatever the truth _is_, however, Kaoru's fist seemed to do the trick. In her closets, the kimonos where sighing in silky relief. "What's gotten into you?!"

"I… I…" Kenshin (purple eye color, and purple bruising) stammered in a post-war shock kind of way. "I broke my promise! I must commit laundry seppuku, that I must!"

Kaoru took a second to wonder how that was accomplished. Perhaps by sticking your head in soapy water until you drowned, or maybe by eating bleach, or perhaps it had something to do with an iron. None of these things sounded like they'd be at all healthy for Kenshin's good looks, so she decided she disapproved. "What's this all about, anyway?"

And thus Kenshin explained exactly what the problem was, but he has a really strange manner of speech, so instead of letting him talk for himself, I'm just going to write it in the narration so I don't have to worry about all those 'oros' and 'that it dids.' The fact that I could at this point lie, and make him say all kinds of things that he wouldn't really say is tempting (I can think of a few things _I'd_ like to hear), but there is that pesky author code of conduct thing that says I really shouldn't write a fic for the express purpose of making out with one of the characters. A_hem_!

So anyway, what he _did_ say was stuff about all kinds of traumatizing experiences of botched laundry experiences and all the pain and suffering inflicted as result. He had a sneaking suspicion that the pattern of color bleeding began when he was still a kid. It was likely, he surmised, that Hiko Seijuro had intentionally dropped bright red hankies into the wash on a regular basis to see what his apprentice would do when the wash came out pink, which was of course, cry for hours if not for days, which is the sort of effect Hiko tends to have on people. Even after the revolution was going strong, Kenshin couldn't seem to break the habit of either ruining white clothes or putting his katana through people, the latter of which tended to stain good outfits as well. That is, in fact, how the previous questionable gi attained the hue it had. And now we return to Kenshin's actual voice, and as you have seen, no liberties were taken during the past few paragraphs, which was intensely difficult to resist. Maybe next time.

"I can't seem to escape the spin-cycle of violence, that it is…" Apologies may be required for the pun contained in the last quotation, but if I _really_ cared, I would have taken it out and it is _obviously_ still there, so in the end, I don't apologize after all. A laundry fic needs a laundry pun anyway.

"Kenshin," Kaoru wondered what the big deal was, but even more importantly, she wondered if her rurouni was disturbed enough not to notice if she showed him to a nice futon to take it easy on… and not to notice that the futon was hers… and the door was locked… Leave it to Kaoru to take advantage of even the most horrific memories of what happens when good laundry goes bad. "Er… what was I saying again?"

"You didn't say anything; you just got a strange expression on your face, that it is…"

"Oh, right!" Kaoru shook her head rapidly, reminding herself that it was bad karma to take advantage of somebody in bad spirits. It's _only_ okay if you trick them and get them drunk first. "I was _going_ to say that I think you're overreacting. What's so bad about making a _mistake_?"

"Kaoru-dono, you don't understand!"

Kaoru put on a wry expression. "This is like that time with the spider, isn't it?" That statement probably requires a smidgen of explanation unless you've read this fic before or are impressively psychic. In short, some months ago at the Dojo, Kenshin had made the mistake of not checking where he was stepping and had accidentally crunched a spider to death. Unsure whether or not the oath not to kill extended to spiders (he'd never really thought about it before), the redhead had gone considerably psycho. Before Kenshin could go and interrupt dinner by proving that his sakabatou _is_ actually sharp enough to commit suicide with, Kaoru and Yahiko had recognized the situation and managed to console him. "That spider was old and shriveled, and was missing three legs before you even stepped on it. You were probably doing it a favor. It's the _same_ thing with the wash… you're just overreacting."

"Oro?" Every guy I've ever met has some sort of excuse for not participating in a conversation like a normal person; I've seen everything from pretense at being deaf to pretending not to understand English. Kenshin's defense is 'oro.' It _seems_ like an appropriate response to _everything_ but doesn't actually have one stick of meaning behind it, so it effectively gets him out of responding and into some kind of comfort zone that guys like to retreat to. Damn you, men! Why can't you just say what you mean!? A_hem_.

"So you don't have to go hang yourself on the clothesline, or anything." For a split second, Kaoru evaluated the possibility that Kenshin might still be confused enough to be led into her bedroom, but she quickly chided herself for being so selfish. He was probably too polite to go in there anyway, so she would make a sacrifice and settle for the kitchen or something. Talk about consideration…

"Maybe you're right, Kaoru-dono. Maybe everybody deserves a second chance?"

"Sure." Kaoru said, rolling up her sleeves with deliberate care. "Now let's just review something. You borrowed money from me to buy a new white gi, which you _ruined_ the very first day?" The 'tanuki drums' started ticking away, signifying the approach of some trademark magic bokken beating.

"Oro? Um… Kaoru-dono, _you_ were the one who insisted! And it was you that made the gi dirty in the first place, that it was!" Kenshin abandoned all the deep psychological considerations he'd just been having about responsibility and oath breaking, because being threatened with a magic bokken beating tends to clear out any other thoughts you might have been having at the time.

"Kenshin, you idiot!" And thus began the other _routine_ that those two have going. That is, of course, Kaoru beating Kenshin over the head with anything that's presently handy, chucking various pieces of china and silverware at him, making use of her otherwise never present punches and kicks, or implementing the ever effective strangle hold. Today, it began with the pursuit around the far side of the bathhouse, followed with a noisy magic bokken beating. Ever a classic for the _routine_.

And that leaves us with nothing more to say on the subject. The question in the title has been answered, the White Gi Day is over, and Kenshin has been abused. That marks the end of a rather long-winded fic if I do say so myself. Move on to the author's notes if that sort of thing is your cup of tea… or your cup of water if you're not a tea drinker. I choose water because _everybody_ has to drink water at least once in a while, where tea is completely optional. The end.

_Elly: Just to clear things up, GWFan had absolutely _nothing_ to do with all those Kenshin-fancying moments. That was all me, and I don't want him to be questioned over it._

_GWFan: That's right. Although, Kenshin kinda looks like a girl, so I suppose we ought to be questioning _you_?_

_Elly: Hmph. You just don't get it. Anyway, if you want to talk to me or GWFan, send a message to DancingMooglehotmail.com._

_GWFan: Wait! Before we end this, I also want to be disassociated with all the run-on sentences in this fic. I have better grammar than that._

_Elly: Fine, that was my fault, too… in fact, this whole fic was an experiment of mine, so don't take it too seriously. Thanks for reading, folks!_


End file.
